Ronnie O’Sullivan makes prediction for ‘unbelievable’ world champion Wu Yize

Ronnie O’Sullivan believes Wu Yize is a long way from the finished article, expecting the world champion to vastly improve in the coming years.

The 22-year-old won the World Snooker Championship in spectacular fashion this year, beating Shaun Murphy 18-17 in a dramatic Crucible final.

That followed an epic 17-16 win over Mark Allen in the semis, having downed Hossein Vafaei, Mark Selby and Lei Peifan earlier in the tournament.

It was just the second ranking title of Wu’s short career so far and O’Sullivan is expecting many more to come.

The Rocket has been something of a mentor to the young Chinese star in recent months, even texting him with advice during the final in Sheffield last month.

The seven-time world champion warns Wu’s rivals that the current Crucible king is only just getting started and will be a much better player in the future.

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‘Wu Yize is an unbelievable talent, an incredible player,’ O’Sullivan told CGTN. ‘He still can improves so much more as a player. Imagine how good he can possibly be.

‘He’s an amazing talent, amazing player now and he’s so young, so early in his career. He’s just going to get better and better.’

A year before Wu’s Sheffield triumph Zhao Xintong became China’s first world champion, another player O’Sullivan has done some work with on the practice table in the past

‘Zhao Xintong is an amazing player, he’s always been my favourite player out of all the Chinese players, this kid is very, very special,’ he said.

‘To see him win a World Championship last year was fantastic, to see Wu Yize win the World Championship this year is great. We’ve got two young great Chinese players having this rivalry and there’s many more young Chinese players coming through.

‘When I see great talent and they don’t win the tournaments I think they should win, that’s why I like to speak to them. You can try this, try that, it will help you become a winner. I didn’t want to see this great talent not witnessed by the whole world. I didn’t tell them much, maybe just a little bit, but sometimes just a little bit is all you need.’

O’Sullivan has been in China this month playingChinese 8-ball pool, losing in the last 32 of the Huacai Billiards World Open in Deqing.

The cue sport variant is very popular in China and the big tournaments provide massive top prizes, with the winner in Deqing claiming $735,000 (£550,000).

The 50-year-old is dabbling with Chinese 8-ball at the moment, but says he could quit snooker and take it up full time in the future.

‘At the moment I’m still playing snooker, I’m enjoying my snooker,’ he said. ‘So I’ll do maybe three or four years of that and then maybe when I’m 54-55, maybe a little bit too old to play snooker, I can come over here, play some Chinese pool, have some fun, relax.

‘That was my thinking, something I can do full time in four or five years’ time.